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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > January
January 2009
Review: ‘Leslee Fraser: No Sure Footing’
Leslee Fraser is a humorously irreverent commentator. The San Antonio-based artist — currently featured in a solo exhibit at Women & Their Work — pulls from the most commonplace commercial realms to twist well-known images into funny but often dark new scenarios.
Specifically Fraser — whose artmaking practice had to change radically when she was diagnosed with chronic reactive arthritis several years ago — collects kitschy pastel ceramic figurines and toys then arranges and modifies them to startling effect. Fraser does her collecting while power walking around inside malls. In effect, shopping has become her mode of artmaking. And yet it’s the commercialization — the bland mass reproduction, the numbing sameness — of popular imagery that Fraser’s art critiques.
Take, for example, “Precious Little.” The tiny staged scene features one of the strangest of the Precious Moments figurines — the mass-produced teardrop-eyed, pastel-hued little statues of children — this one in spacesuit, a helmet in its hands. Fraser has placed this baby astronaut about six inches from a pile of fool’s gold. In a darkly humorous way you can’t help but feel sorry for the tiny space-traveling tot and what she represents — she’s an allegory for our collective starry-eyed dreams of discovering material riches.
Everything in Fraser’s mini tableaux is topsy-turvy, ironic, upside-down; the titles of miniature installations, pure double-entendre. In “Forbidden Love” a rosy cute ceramic mother pig nurses a dog while her piglets look on in surprise. In “Cock Fight 2” two rooster figurines, slightly altered with craft clay, pair off, one in patriotic American garb, the other in the robes of a Islamic imam: two titans of political and religious faith as warring animals.
Despite their handmade-and-heartfelt look and despite their commercial origins, these odd scenes unnerve. Maybe it’s their miniature scale. Maybe it’s the way in which Fraser, with very deft artistic antics, complete subverts the shallow kitsch of pop culture to weave compelling visual commentaries.
‘Leslee Fraser: No Sure Footing’
When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays through Feb. 21
Where: Women & Their Work, 1710 Lavaca St.
Tickets: Free
Information: 477-1064, www.womenandtheirwork.org
Permalink | | Categories: Reviews, Visual arts
Review: Austin Chamber Music Center
As if we needed further proof that Michelle Schumann and the Austin Chamber Music Center take classical music to a new level in Austin — Saturday’s concert at the Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre was sold-out and then some.
Two extra rows of seats had to be added last minute when more than the projected 180 audience members showed up. Good thing that the Rollins, a flexible black box theater with multiple seating possibilities, is nimble. The extra seating didn’t prove a problem.
In fact, it just made the entire concert feel more festive.
Perhaps appropriately,then, Schumann announced that program would start with an encore of sorts by the evening’s featured guests, the lively Carpe Diem String Quartet.
Before they dug into the program’s first piece - Dohnanyi’s String Quartet No. 3 — with a flourish, the quartet whisked off Monti’s ‘Csárdás,’ a frisky, virtuosic piece based on a Hungarian folk dance.
Indeed, frisky characterized the mood of the evening. So did virtuosity. The Ohio-based Carpe Diem not only delivered a vigorous and polished show, they projected an aura of openness
Maybe it was because for the first half of the program, the quartet did without their seats and, except for cellist Diego Fainguersch played standing up. That may seem like a small thing, but it’s really not. Too often the formalities of concert presentation stifles performers - and that in turn colors the audience. But violinists Charles Wetherbee and John Ewing along with violist Korine Fujiwara didn’t hold back on physically expressing their clear joy of playing, swaying swayed and otherwise And how could we not feel that enthusiasm?
The enthusiasm and outward virtuosity really popped when Schumann was joined by Wetherbee and Austin Symphony Orchestra principal clarinetist Stephen Girko for Schoenfeld’s crazy klezmer-infused Trio Freylakh.
Before tackling a mesmerizing presentation of Dvorak’s masterly Piano Quintet, the Carpe Diem strings showed us more of their fun side with Fujiw][=ara’s own homage to her Montana ranching roots with a brilliant burst of fiddle music.
But it was Dvorak’s Quintet that was the gem of the evening. In parts warm and lyrical, in others dramatic and moody, and still at other times folksy, what makes the Dvorak Quintet a masterpiece is ultimate unity. And Schumann and Carpe Diem handled it superbly, with loads of finesse and also with heartfelt soul.
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Arts education gets a boost from Texas legislators
Some readers of this blog may have missed an article that ran in our pages yesterday about efforts from Texas lawmakers to re-institute fine arts education into the Texas education system.
Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano and Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, hosted author Dan Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future,” in a session Monday urging a discussion of how fine arts education might be melded into the core curriculum.
Read the story here.
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News bits: the arts & the recession
The recession continues to take its toll on arts organizations around the country. Every day seems to produce more bad news. The Los Angeles Opera announced layoffs of administrative staff and budget cuts. Famed tenor Plácido Domingo, the general director of the company, deferred his salary last year in an effort to reduce costs rather than to see cuts to the company’s artistic budget.
In the Midwest, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra posted a $3.8 million operating deficit. Ouch.
But by far the biggest news in recent days is Brandeis University’s unconscionable decision to close its Rose Art Museum and sell off the collection of modern and contemporary art — one of the best such collections in the greater Boston area. Such a draconian move is unethical in the worlds of higher education and of the arts and no matter the depth of financial woe — Brandeis officials reported a $10 million deficit to the private university’s budget. The Rose’s 6,000-piece collection — which has been valued at $350 million — includes works by Wilhelm de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Morris Louis, Rene Magritte and many, many others.
Thankfully, museum backers are seeking to halt the move, including investigating the legality of it. And the public outcry also includes some online petitions. Read an interesting Q-and-A with Rose Art Museum director Michael Rush here.
Meanwhile, up in the Metroplex, KERA’s Art & Seek blog reports that longtime Dallas gallery Gerald Peters Gallery is shutting down after more than 20 years. In addition to A-list contemporary artists, the gallery represented such well-known Austin artists as Julie Speed and Bale Creek Allen. The gallery will maintain its Santa Fe and New York branches, but it is a telling sign of the economy that such a stalwart in the state is shutting its doors.
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Skip the bad weather; Watch Austin Lyric Opera on PBS
Skip the bad weather tonight and catch Austin Lyric Opera’s recent production of ‘Cinderella’ which has its television debut on PBS affiliate KLRU. Producer Dutch Rall, filmed the production, which transports the classic fairy to glizty 1930s Hollywood, for the award-winning series Incontext TV. The two-and-a-half hour production — filmed in high definition and with English subtitles — ‘Cinderella’ airs for the first time tonight at 8 p.m.
Check out the trailer here.
Friday, Austin Lyric Opera welcomes Houston tenor Chad Shelton as he makes his debut in the role of the Duke in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto.’ Russian soprano
Shelton is stepping into the role in a bit of last minute maneuver. Read about that here
In other opera news, UT’s Butler School of Music announced its schedule for Mozart’s ‘Bastien und Bastienne’ and Robert X, Rodriguez’s ‘La Curandera.’ Performances of the two short operas are Fridays, February 27 and March 6 at 8 p.m. and Sundays March 1 and 8 at 7 p.m. in McCullough Theatre.
Originally commissioned by Opera Colorado, ‘Curandera’ is Rodriguez’s own response to Mozart’s comedic three-character one-act opera about the lovers Bastien and Bastienne.
The production of ‘Bastien und Bastienne’ is conducted by Wesley Schulz and directed by Rebecca Herman; the production of La Curandera is conducted by Stefan Sanders and directed by Marc Reynolds.
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Review: ‘The Bird’ and ‘The Bee’
“The Bird and The Bee” is essentially two very good plays within one great production.
“The Bird,” by Al Smith, and “The Bee,” by Matt Hartley, were originally staged at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as two separate offerings, giving audiences the chance to view them a la carte or take in the double billing. In Capital T Theatre’s new take, it’s hard to imagine them apart.
Each play tells the story of a different teenager and how they came to meet, fall in love, and die. In “The Bee,” Chloe, played by Tayler Gill, weathers the death of her brother in a traffic accident and is confronted by the insincerity of her friends and neighbors’ mourning. While Gill stands silent, lost in her own feelings, her fame-seeking friend Hannah, played to comically loathsome hyperbole by Melissa Recalde, sets up a virtual memorial, trite pop songs and all.
In “The Bird,” we meet Jakob, who appears only as a silent figure on the other end of Chloe’s instant messages in “The Bee.” While his looming presence there makes him seem a predator taking advantage of Chloe’s suburban discontent, we soon find out that the poor teen’s life is in a whole new category of misery. The crippled son of an immigrant Russian prostitute, Jakob’s only father figure is a teacher who quickly chooses to become a John instead of an inspiration. And yet Jakob remains, for the most part, hopeful and romantic.
I won’t give away the rather dramatic plot revelation that ties the two pieces irrevocably together, but it certainly makes viewing them individually hard to understand. The playwrights add in other little motifs and themes that run across both works, but the more impressive connections are brought out by director Kelli Bland.
“The Bee” is a quiet, bitterly comic play. Chloe is precocious and naïve and prone to ruminating on the nature of public and private spaces, online and off. It’s a work of sweet, subtle connections, with conversations between a drawn-in Gill and her brother, friends, and silent Jakob filling the time.
“The Bird,” however, is largely a monologue by Jakob, played here by Chase Wooldridge giving the best performance that I’ve seen from him. As Jakob relates his life story, he begins with a child’s magical perspective on the world: the clothes left behind by his mother’s visitors are relics of ghosts, the bees in an ever-expanding hive reminiscent of their spirits. The narrative builds like a sad fairy tale until, in a burst of rage, Wooldrige explodes on the ghosts, trying to stop their visits and save his mother. It’s portentous, but disquieting in its own sudden transition.
That switch is the key to the two plays that Bland and her talented ensemble have found to unlock their strengths. On its own, each play is poignant and well executed. As a dual offering, they take on a new tenor of both beauty and horror. “The Bee” strings out the audience’s tension as Gill goes through an arc of ennui to happiness even while the play itself grows tragic. While the cast wrings out all the comedy they can from the horrible townspeople, it can still be a slow build, focusing more on thoughts than actions. That it’s punctuated by the gut punch of “The Bird,” though, makes it a perfect prelude and the pair a wonderful, if emotionally exhausting, combination.
(“The Bird and The Bee” continues at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 and at 7 p.m. Jan. 30 at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road. $10. 479-PLAY, fronterafest.org)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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Review: ‘Kill Will’
“Kill Will” is an entertaining, though derivative, new play. For better or worse, though, it’s at its funniest when it feels most like a pastiche of other works.
The play opens with, as a sign of things to come, a man lying on the floor, a gunshot, and an ominous threat that there’s more on the way. By the end of the play, it’d be tough to find space for one more body. Mickey, the man on the floor, is a sometime East Ender coke dealer who has uncovered an earl’s storage unit full of priceless artifacts and begun moving them for greater profit. Of course, he still has some loose ends from the drug world threatening to do him in, so along with his slow-witted, aspiring actor partner, he’s out for one more big sell to make good. Unfortunately, everyone from Russian assassins to a museum curator named Ophelia is after him before he can sell the diary of William Shakespeare, which would prove the Bard’s existence and authorship.
If you can already see the touches of Quentin Tarantino, the close parallels to Guy Ritchie, and the influence of playwright Martin McDonagh, you’re well ahead of the game. Tarantino and McDonagh both earn mentions in Austin Alexander’s script, but the similarities to Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” may have been a bit too close to home for a mention. Or, as Mickey is told by his limerick-obsessed bartender, the caper would make one hell of a movie. No matter that there’s already plenty out there like it: They all make good money, so throw in a bit of Shakespeare, and you’ve got an interesting twist.
Oddly, though, there’s not much Shakespeare. Ophelia argues over and over again for the importance of his existence and significance as an English author, but everyone else is more interested in the money than the history. That’s probably for the best since her repetitive lectures come off less like Ron Rosenbaum’s engaging book on the question of authorship, “The Shakespeare Wars,” and more like an angry Wikipedia commenter.
Alexander seems obsessed with saying something, though, and peppers “Kill Will” with rambling meditations on pop culture and self-aware in jokes. There’s talk of the boredom of watching theater and movies, musings on the pointless existence of one-line characters, and, after a hazy first act that killed any nostalgia I had for pre-smoking-ban dive bars, a joke about fiddling with cigarettes to look cool on stage and fill up dead space. The meta-jokes do more to rub in the play’s problems than evoke laughs.
And that’s really too bad. When Alexander surrenders to the riffy style of Tarantino and Ritchie, “Kill Will” can be quite funny. As arch crime lord William Slate, Justin Scalise finds comedy in cruelty and a sardonically low value for human life. It feels at times more like an impersonation of Brick Top, Alan Ford’s role in “Snatch,” than an original character, but it doesn’t matter when you’re laughing. Likewise, Sesar Sandoval and Devyn Ray are laugh-out-loud awkward as the fairly stock Russian assassins, and co-director Nathan Osburn finds little gems scattered throughout a variety of bit characters.
Martin McDonagh has long been heralded—or jeered, depending on your tastes—as the Tarantino of theater. He didn’t earn his fame by name-checking his influences or borrowing their broad plots, but by taking the best of their styles and adapting it to his own stories. When Alexander does that, he’s genuinely funny and very much so. Of course, there’s always a place for homage, and it’s worth pointing out that Shakespeare himself is the most famous and talented copycats of them all. Still with the glimmers of originality and a clever sense of humor running throughout “Kill Will,” maybe this is one time where it’s best not to look to Shakespeare for inspiration.
(“Kill Will” continues at 8:45 p.m. Jan. 29 and noon Feb. 1 at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road. $10. 479-PLAY, fronterafest.org)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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Bass Concert Hall re-opens with a new groove
How to re-invent a monolithic 1980s university building, the kind that epitomizes the Brutalist architeture institutions favored in the post-demonstration days?
Turn it it light box and fill it with groovy touches.
That’s what Boora Architects did with the University of Texas’ Bass Concert Hall which re-opened last night after a 18-month $14.5 million renovation.
Bass’s groovy new look features lobbies dotted with hip, club-like furniture courtesy of Lounge 22. The sleek facade contains five levels of greatly expanded hang-out areas that Friday night were filled with a combination of suited UT supporters and officials and a young, fashionable crowd there to see Grammy Award-winning singer John Legend. And with a confident polish, Legend rocked the sold-out, groove-filled show.
Granted, most of Bass’s renovation was forced by mandated fire and safety updates to the 3000-seat venue. And that’s where the bulk of the money was spent. However UT officials did take the opportunity to renovate and expand the lobbies and tweak the acoustics. But sorry — no center aisle was added to the orchestra level’s wide expanse of continental seating.
Instead of a forbidding brick exterior, the Bass is now fronted by a gleaming box that on Friday night glowed as the crowds streamed in. Inside, much of the formerly visually dull interior has been brightened by new carpeting, much better lighting and a fresher, brighter palette of wall color. Most importantly, the five levels of lobbies have been expanded. And judging by how they lured concert-goers Friday night, the new niches are the places to be. Indeed, people-watching has never been better at the Bass.
“It’s a beautiful new addition to Austin’s arts landscape,” said Cliff Redd, executive director of the Long Center. Redd was on hand along several others arts leaders including Ken Stein, executive director of the Paramount Theatre and Zach Theatre artistic director Dave Steakley.
Once the music started — British R&B songbird Estelle opened — the crowd popped. Still, it was impossible to judge the changes to the acoustics. The John Legend production, like most touring acts including Broadway shows, brings and uses its own sound system. For better or for worse. During Estelle’s charming 45-minute set, the bass boomed too loud and the sound teetered on muddy at points. During Legend’s 60-minute set, the sound was clearer.
Still, I’ll reserve my judgements on the acoustics until I can hear an acoustic show or sample Bass’s new amplified sound system.
UTPAC names new director
Kathleen Panoff, director of the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, has been named the director of the University of Texas’ Performing Arts, UT officials will announce later today.
Panoff replaces Pebbles Wadsworth who retired last year. Panoff will work part-time this spring with the PAC staff until she assumes full-time duties this summer. She has more than two decades experience as an arts administrator. In addition to having served as managing director of the Cincinnati Playhouse, she was a development officer for the Celebrity Series of Boston and WGUC-FM, Fine Arts Public Radio in Cincinnati and owned a private consultancy in fundraising.
A practicing flutist, she received her bachelor’s and masters in music from Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.
The UTPAC today re-opens its flagship venue, the Bass Concert Hall, after an 18-month $14.5 million renovation.
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Public tours of Bass Concert Hall scheduled
The University of Texas Performing Arts Center has just scheduled a pair of free public tours of the recently remodeled Bass Concert Hall.
2 p.m. Sunday, January 25
6 p.m.Tuesday, January 27
Tours last approximately 30 minutes. The front doors of Bass Concert Hall will be open approximately 30 minutes prior to each tour and tours will start promptly at the appointed times.
Bass Concert Hall Corner of 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive The entrance faces south, across the street from the Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
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Texas art in the White House?
Could there be the work of a Texas artist in the White House?
Well, we don’t know. But we do know that President and Mrs. Obama have had a work by Texas photographer Keith Carter on display in their Chicago home.
A photograph published in the Time-Life’ book, ‘The American Journey of Barack Obama,’ shows the Obamas in their Chicago home during the presidential campaign. On a wall is a print of Carter’s photograph ‘Garlic.’ The 1991 photograph shows an African American woman who has just yanked a stalk garlic out of her Mississippi garden.
A longtime resident of Beaumont, Carter was named as a winner of the Texas Medal of Arts on Thursday. Ten books of his moody and enigmatic photographs have been published, three by the University of Texas Press. Carter’s work is included in the collections of institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the J. Paul Getty Museum, among others. In Austin, Carter is represented by Stephen L. Clark Gallery.
“Garlic” by Keith Carter. 1991.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Visual arts
2009 Texas Medal of Arts Awards announced
The late artist Robert Rauschenberg, country singer Clint Black, photographer Keith Carter and author T.R. Fehrenbach are just some of the Texans honored with 2009 Texas Medal of Arts Awards.
The biennial awards are given by the Texas Cultural Trust in celebration of those individuals and organizations who have contributed to the Lone Star State’s cultural landscape.
The other honorees are actress Betty Buckley, pianist and arts educator James Dick, Dallas arts patron Edith O’Donnell and the San Antonio architecture firm of Lake Flato. KLRU’s “Austin City Limits” show was named for the multimedia award. Anheuser-Busch Corporation was honored for as a corporate patron.
Award winners will be honored at ceremony and show at the Long Center April 7.
Past Texas Medal of Arts winners include Tommy Tune, Van Cliburn, Debbie Allen, Charley Pride, Willie Nelson. Bill Whitliff and Lyle Lovett.
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Keeping Austin Viola
Aurelien Petillot and his charming and talented ensemble Viola By Choice have another intriguing gig Friday night.
You can read more about Petillot here in a story from today’s paper.
And if you want have a listen to Petillot and company, here’s a couple of sound files:
Niccolo Paganini, Quartet No. 15
Music Inspired By Colors’
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Bethel Hall, St. David’s Episcopal Church, 301 E. Eighth St.
Cost: $15 ($12 seniors, $8 students, $5 children)
Info: www.violabychoice.org
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And now, back to work
Yesterday, the world’s attention was trained on the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama — and rightfully so.
But now, it’s back to work.
In yesterday Statesman’s Letters to the Editors was an interesting letter from reader in response to the Jan. 11 story on the state of Austin arts community in face of the recession. Particularly, the reader was responding to the news that the Austin Museum of Art is yet again putting the kibosh to build a downtown facility for the third time in three decades. As the reader notes, the museum has spent more than $16 million in that time with no new building to show for it.
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Review: ‘Dance Carousel’
‘Dance Carousel’ has become a staple of Austin’s winter dance season. Part of Frontera Fest, Ellen Bartel, ‘Carousel’s’ curator, brings together 10 choreographers, and each choreographer makes four one-minute dances.
This year’s ‘Carousel,’ which opened Tuesday at Salvage Vanguard Theater, offers some familiar choreographic lessons: short time periods work well for comedy, and a selection process that involves pulling names out of a hat makes for an evening of varied quality.
The funniest and one of the most unified contributions came from Matt Williams. His four vignettes formed an ode to Michael Jackson from the Jackson 5 years with a little ‘Thriller’ thrown in. To the skips and hops of Jackson’s young voice a quintet that included Williams danced in unison. Their jazzy performance felt like a wink at the audience, reminding us dance snobs that people dancing in perfect unison is odd and, yes, funny.
Humor took a quirky turn in other pieces. Bartel’s Spank Dance Company offered “Meet the Emilies,” a collage featuring five women in winter clothes appropriate for Northern childhoods. Stillness was a prominent choreographic choice here: One or two dancers would stand as others slowly carried tree branches across the stage. In the last section, the women helped each other through a strip tease, yanking fuzzy hats and warm gloves off each other, before heading into a jazzy, comedic, almost unison dance. (Are we seeing the emergence of an Austin dance aesthetic?)
In a series of dance videos, Sarah Richison and Kevin Lovelady out-quirked Bartel. Bulbous coats made floating dancers look like snowmen, drifting in front of patriotic New York landscapes: the New York Stock Exchange wrapped in red, white and blue, and the Statue of Liberty. In all four mini-films, Mariah Carey’s syrupy “Hero” accompanied the slow-motion snow people. Thank God for dance that does not take itself too seriously.
Other comedic notables were Jennifer Micallef and Chell Garcia-Trias’s vaudevillian wrestling match and Mari Akita’s “pyongyang robo girls + in an intersection+”, where Akita and Erin Meyer directed traffic with a light saber in heeled, military dress.
Of course, there should be room for serious dance, but Andrea Ariel’s duets with Steve Ochoa was perhaps the only section that was not funny, but still developed a theme through finished movement. Much of the rest of the program lacked development and polish. Many pieces eschewed connection across each choreographer’s four slots, which was confusing from an audience standpoint. And several works suffered from amateurish composition, basic patterns repeated with little point, or dance technique that lacked polish.
‘Dance Carousel’ continues at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 23, 1:45 p.m. Jan. 25 and 4:15 p.m. Jan. 31 at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. Tickets are $10.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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President Obama and the arts
President Barack Obama was inaugurated today, entering office with arguably the first presidential platform on the arts that was drafted during the presidential campaign.
Obama outlined an eight-point platform that called for, among other things, a public championing of the importance of arts education, the creation of an “Artist Corps” of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities, a support of increase in funding to the National Endowment for the Arts and increased cultural diplomacy both through greater promotion of American cultural leaders sent abroad as well as loosening stringent post-Sept. 11 visa requirements to attract more foreign artist talent.
Obama’s interest in the arts comes from his own first-hand experience, not the least of which are his accomplishments as the author of two best-selling books “Dreams of My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.”
“When I was a kid,” Obama told a crowd in Wallingford, Pa., on April 2, “You always had an art teacher and a music teacher. Even in the poorest school districts, everyone had access to music and other arts.”
You can download a copy of Obama’s platform on the arts here.
The arts, however, don’t make it specifically on to the 23-point agenda list of Obama’s transition team (see change.gov/agenda), instead landing under the sub-heading ‘Additional Issues.’
Still, Obama’s inaugural celebrations included a heady line-up of creative talent such as musical greats Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, Izthak Perlman along with poet Elizabeth Alexander.
“Our art, our culture,” the president-elect told anchor Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press,” on Dec. 15, “that’s the essence of what makes America special, and we want to make as much of that as possible in the White House.”
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The Blanton goes blue
The Blanton Museum of Art seems to have found a way to do something with the cavernous lobby of their Michener Gallery Building, thanks to the generosity of far-sighted patrons Jeanne and Michael Klein.
The Kleins have supported a site-specific installation by Teresita Fernandez, a 2005 winner of the MacArthur Fellows Program, a.k.a the MacArthur genius awards. Entitled ‘Stacked Waters,’ the massive piece consists of 3,100 square feet of custom-cast acrylic that covers the atrium walls in a striped blue pattern resembling water. It should be finished Jan. 23 and will be on view long-term, probably three to five years.
The title of the work, Fernandez said last week as she was installing the work, is a nod to Donald Judd’s stack pieces and his exploration of box interiors. And no, it’s not a reference to any particular body of water.
With its changing stripes of shades of blue and white, ‘Stacked Waters’ seems to undulate in the skylit atrium, reflecting the changing light. “I wanted it to be like a portrait of the day and the changing light,” said Fernandez. “I want it to immerse the viewer. Instead of giving visitors an object to look at, I wanted to give them an experience.”
Fernandez said she also wanted to break the stereotype of atrium art — you know, the expected grandiose mobile. Instead, she’s offering visitors to UT’s art museum a tantalizing, beckoning journey, especially as you ascend the 50 steps up to the second floor.
Even seen in mid-installation, “Stacked Waters” looks like a major — and sublime — improvement to the Blanton’s stark atrium — a vexing overly-large space in a building strapped by its conservative, uninspiring architecture.
Michael Klein, for one, has been seeking a way to enliven the Blanton’s architecture since the place opened in 2006. “It’s like the architect forgot the art,” said Klein when he stopped by last week to visit with Fernandez.
Artist Teresita Fernandez and Michael Klein.
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Music review: Chamber Soloists of Austin
The performance of Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio for violin, cello and piano that formed the second half of the concert by the Chamber Soloists of Austin on Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church was a tour de force. From start to finish, violinist Elise Winters, cellist Douglas Harvey and pianist Gregory Allen as individuals confidently controlled their instruments and parts, and as an ensemble projected an artistic idea of the music that was vivid and expressively rich.
Allen, never indulging in mere display, breathed life into each note, each melody, each chord. He gave the audience the sort of “total” music making that these ears haven’t heard from Allen in quite some time and have missed keenly, due I hope to bad luck in my choice of performances to attend. I particularly enjoyed the variety of colors and characters he brought to the dozens of trills that are scattered through the Trio’s 40 or so minutes.
Allen’s contribution formed the foundation of this reading, both because of the nature of the composition and the fact that he is by some years’ distance the senior member of the ensemble. This is not by any means to minimize Winters’ and Harvey’s contributions, both of which had the same technical and musical substance as Allen’s. Every tempo seemed to find the sweet spot between spaciousness and compelling forward motion. The tuning in the string parts was wonderful (aside from one nasty spot in the slow movement), balances were sensible and the rhythmic sense in the playing was lively and secure. This was a magnificent performance.
The two works on the first half were pleasant, but the executions simply didn’t get to the level of the Beethoven. For Friedrich Kuhlau’s Quintet for flute and strings, Karl Kraber, flute, Leigh Mahoney, violin, and two violas, played by Joan Kalisch and Ames Asbell, joined Harvey. The five string players also came together for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ early and interesting Phantasy Quintet. These two readings had the occasional slips in tuning and generic characterization that produce good, not excellent, results.
— David Mead is a freelance music writer for the American-Statesman
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Theater review: ‘Beehive’ at Zach Theatre
What is there now to say about “Beehive” after 16 years and multiple incarnations at Zach Theatre? Since opening in 1992, the show has celebrated the singing women of the ’60s, from Motown soulsters to British invaders to Woodstock psychedelics. Now in its “Farewell Performances,” the company is showing its age, but longtime fans are still finding something to celebrate.
“Beehive” is more a revue than traditional musical, breaking up song and dance numbers with patter instead of story. The banter and jokes are passable, but mostly take a shotgun approach to nostalgia, riffing through “I heard Sandra Dee got married,” “I remember where I was on Nov. 22,” or “Here’s Brenda Lee!” before bursting into song.
Fortunately, the songs are more plentiful for a reason. When the girl group of girl groups is on, they’re on. The original cast members sing with an obvious affection for the familiar standards. In particular Judy Arnold’s turn on Tina Turner and Andra Mitrovich’s Janis Joplin, which she’ll reprise for Zach next summer for “Love, Janis,” shine as re-creations of the ’60s sound. The competition is tough, though, with their own duet of “A Natural Woman” and “Do Right Woman,” two divas battling it out and trading verses before coming together in resolution.
The new cast members, Amani Dorn and Noellia Hernandez, show more energy and flair in their dancing, but their song interpretation pales a bit to the older members, who may actually remember the ’60s. With the bouncy, campy atmosphere of “Beehive,” there’s a general tendency to winkingly play up humor in songs that found their way into the canon through growls of pent up aggression or bluesy wails.
In spite of a few off notes throughout the performance, the audience still had fun and seemed to enjoy the jokes — not too surprising as many are based around flirting with or flopping into another boomer’s lap. As a farewell run, “Beehive” seems to be finding the right mark. After 16 seasons of singing hits from one 10-year span, it’s probably time to move on, but only after one more song.
— Joey Seiler is a freelance theater writer and critic for the American-Statesman
(“Beehive” continues at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 22 at Zach Theatre, Kleberg Stage, 1510 Toomey Road. $32-$46. 476-0541, zachtheatre.org.)
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Gallery Soco going virtual
The art and framing shop that opened on South Congress Avenue in 2000 announces it’s going to an online and appointment only business, moving out of their brick-and-mortar space later this month. From the release:
We will be in our current retail location through Saturday, January 24th, and we are having a storewide sale with savings starting at 15% on all artwork in the gallery as well as custom framing! Please stop by or call the gallery to learn more. After January 24th, we will be available by appointment and online, offering the same selection of quality artwork and outstanding customer service as we have over the last 9 years.
They’re keeping their phone line (442-5144) and Web site and plan to keep representing the same roster of artists.
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Austin Lyric Opera announces 2009-2010 season
Austin Lyric Opera announces their 2009-2010 season today — and welcomes to two operas into its repertoire to boot.
Undoubtedly the sprarkliest production on ALO’s lineup is the surreal Glimmerglass Opera production of Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘L’Etoile.’
‘L’Etoile,’ Jan. 30-Feb. 7, 2010 at ALO.
Chabrier’s operatta is filled with witty tunes and clever dialogue, a confection of a piece that pokes fun at society’s mores and class snobbery with plenty of outrageous slapstick. But it’s also a slyly sharp satire as well, despite its zany plot that revolves around a kind named Ouf who loves to impale things (well, people) and a peddler named Lazuli who pines for Ouf’s beloved, Princess Laoula.
Sung in French with dialogue in English, this production features acid-hued sets, outrageous props and hyper-stylized costumes. Jean-Paul Fouchecourt plays Ouf with Deborah Domanski as Lazuli and Nili Reimer as Princess Laoula. Richard Buckley conducts.
‘L’Etoile,’ Jan. 30-Feb. 7, 2010 at ALO.
Also new to the ALO repertoire is Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ next season presented in an edgy production by the New York City Opera.
Yes, Humperdinck’s opera is based on the familiar fairy tale, but with this inventive — and dark — staging, the story is set in 1893 New York when the city was teeming with immigrants. And fraught with fear. Hansel and Gretel live in a gritty Lower East Side tenement and when they wander in search of food, they end up in a snowy Central Park. The witch? She lives in a sumptuous Fifth Avenue mansion.
Also a first for ALO, countertenor Jason Abrams will sing the role of the Sandman. Abrams will be the first countertenor featured in an ALO production and I look forward to that ethereal countertenor sound he’ll bring to the role.
“Hansel and Gretel,” April 24-May, 2010 at ALO.
Opening the ALO season is Puccini’s ‘Boheme.’ A production of San Diego Opera, this show is probably the most traditional telling of Puccini’s tragedy of bohemian Paris — remember, it’s the origin of the Broadway musical ‘Rent’ — that Austin has seen. This ‘Boheme’ is set in 19th-century France, awash in Toulouse-Lautrec visual references.
‘La Boheme’ Nov. 7-11, 2009 at ALO.
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Blanton, UT Dept. of Art launch residencies for Latin American artists
The Blanton Museum of Art in collaboration with UT’s Creative Research Laboratory of the Department of Art and Art History has announced an ambitious new series of artist residencies for emerging Latin American artists.
Called “Mapping Exchange: Artists Residencies Programs,” the initiative establishes a series of three annual artists residencies that will include exhibitions, artist talks and cultural events organized with other university departments.
Spearheaded by Ursula Davila-Villa, the Blanton’s interim curator of Latin American Art, and CRL director Jade Walker — both ambitious emerging arts professionals in their own right — “Mapping Exchange” draws from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.
Austin-Argentina Residency
This residency culminates with an exhibition of works by the visiting artist and selected university-affiliated artists.
Titled “A Strange Land,” this year’s exhibition will investigate citizenship, urbanization and borders and features the work of Erica Bohm, this year’s Austin-Argentinian residency artist. Her work deals with landscape and the different ways in which emotions are conveyed through the idea of landscape.
“A Strange Land” runs Jan. 24 through Feb. 7 at the Creative Research Laboratory, 2832 East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Admission is free. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays.
Mexico-Austin Artistic Exchange
A partnership with the Museo Carrillo Gill in Mexico City, the Mexico-Austin Artistic Exchange provides a one-month residency at UT for a selected emerging artist living in Mexico followed followed by a similar presentation hosted by the Museo Carrillo.
This year’s artist is Diego Perez GarcÃa, who started his career as a photojournalist. In his work, GarcÃa reconstructs myths and legends through a Mexican sociocultural context.
Ibere Camargo Residency
Organized in conjunction with the Ibere Camargo Foundation (Porto Alegre, Brazil), provides an opportunity for a selected emerging artist (who must be living in Brazil) to spend two months at UT and the Blanton. An international jury selects the artist
Permalink | | Categories: Blanton Museum of Art, Visual arts
Pencil it in: Ransom Center lectures
This spring’s Harry Ransom Lectures at the University of Texas brings a quartet of
Barry Unsworth, Jan. 26, 7 p.m. Booker Prize-winning British novelist Barry Unsworth, whose archive is housed at the Ransom Center, talks about his new book, “Land of Marvels.”
David Mamet, Feb. 5, 7 p.m. Everybody’s favorite acerbic wit, playwright, writer, and film director David Mamet — whose papers are housed at the Ransom Center — joins UT President William Powers Jr. for a conversation about “The Spanish Prisoner “(1997) and a screening of the film.
Azar Nafisi, March 12, 7 p.m. In her bestseller “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books,” Azar Nafisi chronicled the Islamic revolution in Iran and how it affected one university literature professor and her students.
Ed Ruscha, April 2, 7 p.m. Seminal pop artist Ed Ruscha has had a career that’s spanned more than four decades and several medi including photography, painting, drawing, film and book-making. One of Rusch moody black-and-white images of the road culture of the American West graces the cover of “Threshold of Night,” the Grammy-nominated CD by Austin choir Conspirare.
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Review: ‘The Last Five Years’
It’s a little early in the year to be calling out bests, but Penfold Theatre’s production of “The Last Five Years” will undoubtedly be on my list by the time all things are said and done.
In fact, I was close to that point in the first few minutes when Annika Johannsson’s Cathy draws her leg up to sit on a chair and read the goodbye letter left by David Gallagher’s Jamie to the first strains of a violin melody. It’s a simple, sad moment, and if you don’t get goose bumps, something’s broken.
The five years in the title are the whole of Jamie and Cathy’s relationship. As the only characters in the story, you get to know them well, but never together. Writer and composer Jason Robert Brown puts them at odds both in love and in time. We see Cathy’s story work backwards from the moment she finds Jamie’s wedding ring on the kitchen table to end on their first date while Jamie’s moves forward.
While the two share the stage with melting chemistry, they rarely interact. It’s part of the written chronology, but stage and musical director Michael McKelvey uses it to great effect. Jamie, a wunderkind novelist, sings a holiday fable while Cathy, a Christmas or two ahead of him, sits idly at the table. She then sings about coming home from her unsuccessful musical auditions to a loving home while staring straight past an unaffected Jamie. The staging tweaks the already heartbreaking performances with bittersweet irony.
In fact, the only duet comes when couples time lines converge at their wedding. It’s clear that life is moving in opposite directions. The only question is whether, in those rare and beautiful moments, when it synchs up, everything becomes worth it. The only other bit of shared song at the end when each says goodbye to the other, Cathy until their second date and Jamie forever, leaves that open to both optimistic hope and pessimistic hindsight.
That the distance between Jamie and Cathy is so palpable is surprising in the tiny Larry L. King theater. With audience seating surrounding the stage on two sides and the scaled down orchestra, lacking nothing with Steve Saugey on the keyboard and Amy Harris violin, on the third, it’s easy for us to feel closer to the characters than they are to each other.
In that small space, warmly appointed by set designer David Utley as a New York artist’s apartment, Johansson and Gallagher excel. At close range every moment of pain, love, and humor is broadcast at almost overwhelming force without losing any nuance. With no amplification between their voices and our ears, Gallagher’s energetic rendition of the bouncy tunes and Johansson’s riveting, emotional takes on Cathy’s loss are even stronger.
Forgive me for gushing, but this is the sort of production that audiences are lucky to see: unique, intimate, beautiful, painful and wonderful.
(“The Last Five Years” continues Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m, Sunday, Jan. 18, at 5 and 8 p.m., Jan. 24, at 2 and 10:30 p.m., and Jan. 25, at 8 p.m. at the Austin Playhouse, Larry L. King Theatre, 3601 S. Congress, Bldg. C. $10-$20. 476-0084, penfoldtheatre.org.)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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Review: ‘Miss Witherspoon’
For all its status on the short list for the Pulitzer in 2006, Christopher Durang’s “Miss Witherspoon” is a shambling, rambling mess of a comedy, now getting a production by Different Stages. It has its moments of meaning and, more frequently, humor, but for the most part it feels like “It’s A Wonderful Life” for Generation Irony.
Miss Witherspoon herself, nicknamed after that grouchy type of character nobody likes in Agatha Christie novels, commits suicide sometime in the ‘90s. Her death, which begins the play, is a belated reaction to Skylab’s crashdown on Earth, itself only the last straw in a life spent wondering what else could go wrong. Unfortunately, the powers that be in this afterlife, which include Gandalf, Christ and an Indian spirit figure named Maryamma, want her to go back for her own karmic adjustment and the betterment of the world.
This leads to a lot of didactic arguments that are occasionally funny, but often too slow paced to engage. The problem with Witherspoon, played by Jennifer Underwood, is that her “brown tweed aura” just isn’t that compelling when left to simply bicker back and forth with spiritual leaders. Fortunately, to some degree, Durang has always been better at writing one-joke sketches, often very well, than scenes that build to a plot.
That’s where Different Stages’ new production has a chance to shine. While Underwood manages arch quips against Suzanne Balling’s serenely effervescent Maryamma, it’s hard to feel involved. When she’s finally cast back to Earth, though, her permanently crabbed expression finds new life as a baby to suburban yuppies, tragic child to white trash burnouts, and even a dog.
Each vignette gives the cast a chance to break out of the debate format, though, and inject some life into the production. Rotating through a range of parental figures are Derek Jones and Camille Latour, both funny as both the pampering Connecticut parents and, more bleakly, as the OD’ing abusers.
While the emphasis on most of Witherspoon’s lives is ironic, dark humor, as Underwood grows up in the rundown home, she finds some real pathos as well. Watching the older Underwood who last shone as the gleeful Duchess in Rubber Repertory’s “The Casket of Passing Fancy” descend into sullen adolescence brings the play to an emotional, if brutal, turning point.
Unfortunately, we’re quickly brought back to mildly absurd, tiring spiritual debates that rob the production of a satisfying close. Instead of a life as an example, we’re given rapidly aging pop culture quips and pedantic talking heads. As Miss Witherspoon might ask, “Why bother?”
(“Miss Witherspoon” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 1 at the City Theatre, 3823 Airport, Suite D. $15-$30. 474-8497, main.org.)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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Review: ‘Delta Dandi’
Some playwriting needs to be rolled around in actors’ mouths.
Sharon Bridgforth’s writing needs, even relishes, bodies.
Bridgforth’s newest work ‘Delta Dandi,’ in its premiere Saturday at the Long Center, has a roundness and thickness to it. The layers of language move and merge with song and dance as the actors conjure mostly momentary characters in the creation of a poetic landscape.
Bridgforth designed the play with the tone poems of African American musicians such as Mary Lou Williams in mind. The result is a performance that feels like a series of poems held together by a loose sense of place: a hot bayou rich with juke joints and simmering collard greens. From this place arises “Delta Dandi’s” funniest character, Honey Pot, a seductively wild pianist Bridgforth describes as “the kind of woman who will steal your girlfriend.”
The ensemble gives full-bodied attention to the humorous sensuality, aided by choreographer Baraka de Soleil, who also dances in the production.
But bodies break and tear in Bridgforth’s bayou, ripped apart by racism’s violence. Florinda Bryant, who generally seems to be “Delta Dandi’s” lead character, shudders with sadness, chest sinking, chin dropping. Yet in the face of lynchings and random violence, the actors tap defiance in their stance. The female chorus evokes women warriors: delivering many lines with feet spread, knees bent, pelvises sinking.
Children speak back — almost spit back — at racial trauma. Azure Osborne-Lee holds one shoulder back, pumping it as she yells at the unseen white man who beat her younger brother. And then there is Helga Davis, whose bold, deep, slipping/sliding voice proves the perfect compatriot to Bridgforth’s language. Davis can touch deep pain, but she also gives quick, mischievous glances over her shoulder, reminding the audience that she always retains control—and a sense of humor.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
‘Delta Dandi’ performed Jan. 9 and 10 at the Long Center.
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Reporter’s Notebook: arts and the recession
The fact-finding for Sunday’s front page story on the impact the recession has had on the Austin arts scene, turned up lots of information and observations. Here’s additional notes based on conversations with Austin arts leaders and managers:
“An odd or mixed blessing of Austin’s social sector is that Austin does not have as many large foundations as many other cities our size. As we non-profits are all much more reliant on a greater number of cash-based gifts, we find ourselves a little better off when asset-based sources are severely stressed,” said Cookie Ruiz, executive director of Ballet Austin and current president of Dance USA, the national service organization for professional dance organizations.
“The same is true of the lack of dependence of Austin’s arts organization on our own endowments. Within the national dance industry some of our largest dance companies are finding their own assets severely compromised. Some of these companies have built these endowments over years in order to ease their annual fundraising need — and now are in fairly challenging times trying to identify how to cover these missing resources.”
Ballet Austin has a $1.7 million endowment and an annual budget of $5.5 million.
“What I’m inferring, is that as far as children are concerned, parents don’t want their kids impacted by (this economy) yet,” said Kevin Patterson, general director of the Austin Lyric Opera, on why enrollment at the opera’s Armstrong School of Music has remained steady. The school has 1200 adult and child students who take various classes each week.
Austin Lyric Opera has a $5 million annual budget and an endowment of $2.4 million. Patterson said that he does not plan to raise tickets prices for next season. And tickets to the opera’s next production, “Rigoletto,” are selling ahead of the projected timetable.
“I’ve always subscribed to the idea that arts organizations damage themselves most when they try to save money by cutting too much out of their artistic budgets. Never cut the quality of the product you offer.”
“We are not different because we are part of the University of Texas and we are not recession-proof. In other words, the university does not prop us up. Ticket sales and rentals make up 68 percent of our income, with only 18 percent coming from the University or State of Texas sources. The other 14 percent comes from sponsorships, endowments, and membership,” said April Holmes, UT Performing Arts Center Interim Director. The UTPAC’s Bass Concert Hall is set to re-open later this month after an 18 month $14.5 million renovation.
“Corporate sponsorships remain at the same level as they were during the 2006-2007 season. What we have seen from our corporate partners is much more attention being paid to their return on investment than ever before.”
“Membership has increased 180 percent over our last full season in 2006-2007. 80% of our member base are new members. Our reopening shows (John Legend, Broken Social Scene, World of Sound) are selling extremely well. It still remains to be seen how single tickets to our fine Arts season events will sell.”
“What’s entertainment is what’s most marketable now and that’s what selling tickets,” said Paul Beutel, managing director of the Long Center for the Performing Arts. “And what that says to me is we don’t want to respond to this recession by staying home by ourselves,”
“Philanthropy is always going to be a challenge in Austin. Even in the best of times you’re asking people in Austin to do something they’re not used to doing,” said Cliff Redd, executive director of the Long Center for the Performing Arts.
Latifah Taormina, executive director of Austin Circle of Theatres, reports that there’s been an increase in the use of the organization’s AusTIX discount ticketing service by theaters and performing arts organizations in Austin.
“However, we also have a much improved ticketing service — both online and off — so at this point it’s difficult to know how much the economic downturn is driving the increase in discount tickets,” she said.
The Austin Arts Alliance, which stages the annual Art City Austin downtown art fair and happening, closed out their fiscal year in July with a 12.6 percent increase in revenue, said Meredith Powell, the organization’s executive director. “In tough economic times, people come together to experience art and culture, which they find uplifting and encouraging. “We are a lean and fairly flexible organization with low overhead,” said Powell. “Although our funding sources are diversified, it’s obviously better to be proactive rather than reactive so we’re certainly monitoring our budget and projected revenues for 09 and will adjust accordingly if necessary.”
Austin Shakespeare’s September production of “Macbeth” sold approximately 80 percent of its run at the Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre, with several sold out or near sold out houses. The December production of “Celebrate! A Musical Revue,” however, did not perform well.
“We have reduced our ticket prices for our upcoming production of “An Ideal Husband” on selected performances by 5 to 15 percent,” said managing director Alex Alford. “We are looking at collaborations and pro bono contributions wherever possible to reduce expenses. Upcoming budgets are very lean. And we are planning to increase our educational offerings, which can be solid revenue producers.
“Since the downturn, a few donors have declined to contribute, citing losses in personal wealth,” said Alford. “Some have delayed their contributions. Some have reduced the amount of their contributions. Conversely, we have seen numerous first-time donors. In my opinion, it is still too early to get a strong sense of what trends there are in our fundraising.”
With the opening of its second building in November, the Blanton Museum of Art, which has an annual budget of $6.5 million, also opened a cafe and a greatly expanded gift shop.
“It’s allowed us to increase our earned income revenue projections” said Ann Wilson, the Blanton’s interim director, who added that the number of visitors who make a purchase at the store has nearly doubled.
Attendance was strong in 2008 and we haven’t had to add extra incentives yet, though one of our biggest concerts this year was a free show in the park,” said Graham Reynold artistic director of the music group Golden Hornet Project. “Our plans have expanded rather than contracted but if trickle down hits us we may need to adapt. We plan ahead but are able to adjust. So far so good but we’ll see, it may not have gotten to us yet.”
Says John Riedie, the group’s executive director, “We had a fantastic season, but only our final show came after the economic collapse. Also, I think we’re too small to really feel it.”
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Your A-List: Best Theater Company
They just netted a prestigious $25,000 National Endowment of the Arts grant for new play development. They opened the Long Center last year with an original play that was a sweet valentine to indie theater. And they still get very nervous before every show.
The Rude Mechanicals topped last week’s austin360.com A-List poll for Best Theater Company with 35 percent of the vote, from you, the reader.
“The Method Gun,” by the Rude Mechanicals. Photo by Bret Brookshire.
Since 1995 the Rudes — the original young bucks who are, like, all hitting 40 now — have been burning up the stage with their vibrant and always surprisingly original theater works.
The Sex Pistols, inventor Nikola Tesla, the Great West, a legendary theater teacher, a neighborhood, a family — these are just some of the subjects the Rudes have probed in 22 original productions.
The Rudes have toured the country with their shows — and toured to the UK and Europe. They do Austin — and Texas — proud.
Tune into their Web site to tune in their theater-making.
- Others receiving votes in the A-List:
- Zach Scott Theatre — 32 percent
- The Vortex — 19 percent
- City Theater — 4 percent
- Austin Playhouse — 2 percent
- Hyde Park Theatre — 2 percent
- Esther’s Follies — 1 percent
- Salvage Vanguard — .4 percent
- Greater Tuna — .3 percent
- ColdTowne — .3 percent
- Latino Comedy Project — .3 percent
- Naughty Austin — .2 percent
Patron pledges $1 million to the Austin Symphony Orchestra
Austin arts patron James C. Armstrong has pledged $1 million to the Austin Symphony Orchestra’s education programs, symphony officials announced Tuesday.
The monies will be used in an endowment to support the symphony’s youth programs. Armstrong has been a longtime supporter of the symphony’s Young People’s Concerts which bring fourth and fifth graders to the special 45-minute orchestra concerts. The concert feature music the children have heard all year at school via study guides designed and published by ASO.
A steady supporter of youth arts programs, Armstrong has also donated to the Austin Lyric Opera, Ballet Austin, Austin Museum of Art and Zach Theatre, among other arts organizations. Austin Lyric Opera’s Armstrong School of Music is named in his honor.
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A bailout for the arts?
Last week, the Austin Museum of Art announced that its planned $23 million new downtown museum has fallen victim to the recession, now that the development firm partnering with the museum has pulled out of the deal.
The story is just the most recent chapter in an ever-expanding volume of reports about how the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression has taken its toll on the arts.
Locally, the AMOA demise is the worst situation we’ve seen so far. Some arts organizations have smartly scaled back before it’s too late. The Austin Lyric Opera announced that it was canceling its lavish Opera Ball; the Long Center has canceled a few future shows that weren’t selling well.
Nationally, the grim picture just keeps getting grimmer. More than a dozen Broadway plays and musicals will close this month, because of poor ticket sales. The venerable 56-year-old Baltimore Opera declared bankruptcy in December and canceled its season. And the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art — its endowment shrunken — has only survived thanks to a $30 million bailout from mega-patron Eli Broad.
That’s just a few of the tales of the recession. You can read them daily on www.artsjournal.com.
Michael Kaiser — president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and author of “The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations” — penned a persuasive plea for a national arts bailout. It ran in the Washington Post and other newspapers this weekend.
“The arts in the United States provide 5.7 million jobs and account for $166 billion in economic activity annually. This sector is at serious risk,” writes Kaiser. “We need an emergency grant for arts organizations in America, and we need legislation that allows unusual access to endowments.”
You can read Kaiser’s full editorial here.
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Austin Museum of Art cancels downtown project
While revelers and arts patrons were busy preparing for New Year’s Eve festivities, the Austin Museum of Art quietly dropped a ball of its own Wednesday. Talk about finishing up 2008 with a bang — or really, a bust.
Museum officials and representatives of Houston development firm Hines Interests LP announced Wednesday that they were postponing their plans to build a 30-story office tower and a new $23 million Austin Museum of Art facility downtown on the museum-owned block at West Fourth and Guadalupe streets. Both the museum and Hines cited the grim economic climate as the reason the project is on hold.
Did they think no one was looking, announcing it New Year’s Eve? Well, we were.
Plans had called for the museum to occupy the east half of the prime downtown block with a three-story 40,000-square-foot building facing Republic Square Park. Hines was going to purchase — for an undisclosed sum — the west side of the lot for its office tower. Both the tower and the museum were to be designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the firm is responsible for the master plan of the redesigned University of Texas campus, with principal Fred Clarke leading the design team. Preliminary designs were unveiled in February and suggested that the museum would be clean modernist structure featuring plenty of transparent glass.
The project had been scheduled to break ground in 2009 and with completion slated for 2011.
Representatives of the museum and Hines both say the project is merely postponed, not altogether canceled. But a spokesperson for Hines said the company would not renew an option that expired Wednesday to purchase half of the prime downtown lot which the museum has owned since the early 1980s. The sale of the land to Hines probably would have covered almost half of the $23 million needed to build the museum. And now with no partner anteing up, that leaves the museum flat out of luck — and money. The museum’s board has not decided whether to put the land back on the market.
The museum, by the way, selected Hines after 14 developers submitted proposals.
At 40,000 square feet, the proposed new museum would have more than double the museum’s existing space at 823 Congress Ave., where it rents the first floor of an office building. The museum, which has a $4.3 million annual budget, also has the historical 12-acre Laguna Gloria site in West Austin, which includes a restored 1916 villa that hosts small exhibitions and studio buildings for the museum’s art school.
This is the third time in nearly three decades that the museum and its leaders have tried — and failed — to build a downtown museum.
The first time the museum, then known as Laguna Gloria Art Museum, proposed building in downtown Austin was in the early 1980s. In 1985, voters approved $14.7 million in tax-supported bonds for the project. But the real estate bust of the late 1980s sent the project into a tailspin. Also, bickering among major arts groups caused the City Council to rescind its support of the then public-private venture.
Plans by famed architect Robert Venturi were shelved after $3 million was spent on design and administrative fees.
In 1995, the museum moved to its current location on Congress Avenue and made another bid to build downtown. In 1998, architect Richard Gluckman was selected to design a sleek, modern 140,000-square-foot building. A $64 million capital campaign was launched. At the same time, the museum returned $13.7 million in city bond money after museum leaders said they wanted control of their project and its land.
However, in 2001 museum officials decided to build the project in stages and settled on a $43 million first phase.
But then Austin’s high-tech economy fizzled even more and after the abrupt departure of then-director Elizabeth Ferrer in 2002, supporters of the project retreated. By early 2004, the Gluckman design had been scrapped. Of the $14.25 million the museum had raised for the project, all but $860,000 was spent on architect fees and fundraising and marketing expenses.
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Got a favorite theater?
Got a favorite theater company in town? Given our plethora of thespians in Austin, picking a fav may hard. But give it a try.
This week, vote on austin360.com’s A-List for your favorite. Deadline is 11 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 6. Vote here.
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In the arts, the Eight from 2008
Looking back over the past year, here’s my list of eight great things from 2008 in the arts, many of which will resonate into 2009 and beyond:
The Long Center for the Performing Arts. Nothing topped this year’s cultural news more than the opening of Austin’s first civic performing arts center. And nothing has or will continue to shape Austin’s cultural landscape like the Long Center. After decades of imagining and 15 years in planning, Austin finally got what it so long deserved: an architecturally distinctive, environmentally smart, downtown civic landmark.
Arthouse renovation. Nothing says progress like infrastructure. With the unveiling of an innovative design for a $6.6 million renovation to its historic downtown building, Arthouse, the contemporary arts center, signaled that it is raising the bar for Austin’s visual arts eco-system. Not only will its multifunctional design bring multimedia contemporary art to downtown, but it’s an expansion project that’s very achievable in scope. And with $3.7 million already raised and more pledged — and a committed board and institution with a sharp mission — its an arts building that will be realized.
Landmarks, University of Texas Public Art Program. In an innovative program with the venerable Metropolitan Museum of Art, UT entered a five-year loan agreement to bring 28 sculptures by such noted 20th century artists as Louise Bourgeois, Jim Dine and Tony Smith to the campus for public display inside and out. And with other public art initiatives planned, the new Landmarks program gives the UT campus a distinctive — and much-needed — aesthetic profile.
Dr. Ernest and Sarah Butler’s gift of $55 million to the University of Texas School of Music. For years, Sarah and Ernest Butler have been devoted and generous supporters to Austin’s cultural institutions, shoring up their long-term survival through important donations to endowment funds and buildings. This year, with the Butler’s $55 million gift to UT’s School of Music — the second largest single gift to UT — many future generations of musicians will be nurtured.
‘Cult of Color: Call to Color,’ Ballet Austin and Arthouse. A rising creative tide lifts all artistic boats. Ballet Austin’s Stephen Mills collaborated with artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and composer Graham Reynolds. The result? A wholly original dance theater work with an original score. And with an important accompanying exhibit at Arthouse, everyone got a peek at the creative process.
‘Threshold of Night: Music of Tarik O’Regan,’ Conspirare. Austin’s already Grammy-nominated chorus netted two more Grammy nominations for its sparkling and sublime CD, “Threshold of Night.” But just as important, Conspirare chose to record the mesmerizing music of a rising star 30-year-old composer. After all, what’s creative progress if it’s not nourished by the new?
‘The Bat,’ Austin Lyric Opera. Yes, it was totally goofy. And sure, hard-nosed opera aficionados wrote it off. But by infusing Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” — surely the goofiest confection of an opera — with all things Austin, the clever writers from Esther’s Follies and Austin Lyric Opera sent one big, fun, fabulous, operatic mash note to their hometown.
Eight jewel-like exhibitions and performances:
- “Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Groups in 1960s New York,” Blanton Museum of Art. A brilliant re-discovery and re-presentation of an important group of artists.
- “The Method Gun,” Rude Mechs. To open the Long Center, a sweet valentine to indie theater from Austin’s original theater collective.
- “Winterreise/Werther” Austin Chamber Music Center. A brilliant theatrical re-imagining of Schubert’s song cycle.
- “Black Room: Peat Duggins,” Art Palace Gallery. A poetic exploration of the great American West by one of Austin’s most thoughtful visual artists.
- “Death of A King’s Horseman,” Pro-Arts Collective and St. Edward’s University. A collaborative effort resulted in a powerful production of a masterpiece of contemporary African theater.
- “Women’s Work: Reconstructions of Self,” Andee Scott. An elegant dancer created an elegant, multimedia exploration of the creative process.
- “Yoon Cho: Nothing Lasts Forever,” Women & Their Work. A wise and irreverent body of multimedia art that plumed the realities of contemporary American family culture.
- “Passion at Play,” American Repertory Ensemble. Smart, polished contemporary ballet with live inventive chamber music. What could be better?
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